'Will You Sign an Affidavit?': Elon Musk and Sam Altman Are Still Engaged in a War of Words on X Billionaire CEOs Elon Musk and Sam Altman have been trading insults and accusations on X this week over everything from Apple's App Store to who is more trustworthy.
By Erin Davis
Key Takeaways
- Elon Musk threatened to sue Apple on X, accusing the iPhone-maker of "playing politics" for not putting Grok in its "Must Have" section while OpenAI stays at No. 1.
- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman then responded to the post with claims of his own.
- Now, the two tech billionaire CEOs are trading jabs on X.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have been fighting on X this week, reigniting their years-long, back-and-forth war of words.
It started on Monday when Musk posted on X that his AI company, xAI, would be taking "legal action" against Apple. Musk accused Apple of "playing politics" for not putting Grok in its "Must Have" section.
"Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation," Musk wrote. "xAI will take immediate legal action."
Related: Elon Musk Warns Microsoft That Its Partner, OpenAI, Is About to Eat It Alive
Readers added community notes to Musk's post, pointing out that other apps, including Perplexity and Deepseek, have reached No. 1. But OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded on X with claims of his own — that he's "heard" Musk manipulates his companies to "harm his competitors and people he doesn't like."
This is a remarkable claim given what I have heard alleged that Elon does to manipulate X to benefit himself and his own companies and harm his competitors and people he doesn't like. https://t.co/HlgzO4c2iC
— Sam Altman (@sama) August 12, 2025
Apple has yet to publicly comment.
Altman then linked out to a 2023 report from Platformer, which accuses Musk of instructing engineers to boost his own reach and engagement. Musk has denied the report.
"I hope someone will get counter-discovery on this," Altman wrote, "I and many others would love to know what's been happening. But OpenAI will just stay focused on making great products."
Musk responded and called Altman a liar: "You got 3M views on your bullshit post, you liar, far more than I've received on many of mine, despite me having 50 times your follower count!"
Altman replied snarkily — "skill issue" and then followed up with "or bots" before doubling down. "Will you sign an affidavit that you have never directed changes to the X algorithm in a way that has hurt your competitors or helped your own companies?" he wrote. "I will apologize if so."
Related: Sam Altman Says Elon Musk Is 'Clearly a Bully' Who Likes to Get in Fights with Rivals
As of Wednesday morning, two CEOs appear to have stopped directly engaging with one another (for now), but they are still sharing criticisms from each other's chatbots.
You too pic.twitter.com/eFMypoCi97
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2025
Last week, Musk and Altman also traded insults on X, this time after Musk said OpenAI was "going to eat" its partner, Microsoft, alive. Afterwards, when asked about Musk's post during an appearance on CNBC's "Squawk Box", Altman responded with a short: "You know, I don't think about him that much."
Based on their X accounts this week, that might be a stretch.
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